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"When Barclays&amp;#8217; Ben Reitzes refers to the &amp;#8220;stickiness&amp;#8221; of Apple&amp;#8217;s iPhone, he&amp;#8217;s not talking about adhesives on the product&amp;#8217;s surface. (Indeed, the iPhone seems to us as slippery as ever, which may be why there&amp;#8217;s such a lively market in protective cases.)\nWhat he&amp;#8217;s referring to in a report to clients issued Tuesday is a lock-in effect, whereby iPhone and iPod touch owners who buy from the App Store become increasing unlikely to switch to a competing product. Reitzes calls this a &amp;#8220;key differentiating factor&amp;#8221;:\n&amp;#8220;This software strategy enables a distinctive \u201Cstickiness\u201D for the iPhone, which should enhance customer loyalty over the long-term. We believe &amp;#8216;apps&amp;#8217; personalize iPhones to levels that competitors cannot match. We also believe strong interest in the App Store is helping to pull through iPod touch units.&amp;#8221;\nReitzes&amp;#8217; note was one of several generally positive reports on Apple \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAAPL\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t issued this week by analysts who track the stock.\n\nFTN Equity Capital Markets&amp;#8217; Bill Fearnley raised his rating on the company from &amp;#8220;neutral&amp;#8221; to &amp;#8220;buy,&amp;#8221; citing growing investor sentiment that Steve Jobs&amp;#8217; medical leave won&amp;#8217;t be as disruptive as originally feared. (link)\nKauffman Bros.&amp;#8217; Shaw Wu echoed that sentiment, saying that investors today seem less concerned about Steve Jobs&amp;#8217; health than his products&amp;#8217; high prices. Wu argues that Apple is relatively immune to recessionary pressures because computers and cell phones have evolved into necessities &amp;#8212; so essential to modern life &amp;#8220;that people are willing to pay a premium to make their lives easier and more productive.&amp;#8221;\nBarclays&amp;#8217; Reitzes sees positive signs in the imminent release of the 17-inch MacBook Pro (scheduled to start shipping next week), expected updates of the iMac and Mac Pro (sometime this quarter), and the upcoming release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard (in June, he says) &amp;#8220;with out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007, multicore support, QuickTime X, Open CL, location and multi-touch tools.&amp;#8221;\n\nFearnley set his price target for Apple at $140. Reitzes and Wu are staying pat at $113 and $120, respectively.\nApple shares dropped more than 4.5% in Tuesday&amp;#8217;s market free fall to close at $97.83."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://fortune.com/2009/02/10/apples-sticky-iphone/>